Abstract:

The study examined the emotions of pre-service teachers in the context of teaching and learning processes. Although considerable attention has been paid to student teachers’ academic and pedagogic knowledge, much less research has focused on the role of emotions in the teacher training context.

The present study examined student teachers’ emotions regarding teaching and learning processes. Sixty student teachers participating in a course on emotional intelligence were asked to write "freely" about an emotional experience linked to their studies. The students described experiences from their elementary school, high school, and academic studies. The cross content analysis highlighted three main themes:
1. Students described three types of emotional experiences: positive emotions (e.g., the individual’s success in their studies), negative emotions (e.g., insult following conflict with a teacher) and times when negative emotions have transformed into positive ones (e.g., failure in a test prompts a big effort and great success).
2. Most emotional experiences concern interactions with teachers and staff, rather than colleagues or peer groups.
3. The subject that aroused most emotional experiences was mathematics: participants experienced strong positive feelings of achievement if they did well in mathematics and conversely strong negative feelings of failure.

The findings revealed the importance of being aware of the strong impact of emotions in the learning and teaching processes. Teacher training should focus on teachers' emotions as a key factor in the process of professional development.